Life after the procés: evolving repertoires of separatist civil society across critical junctures

The Catalan independence movement has been the object of growing scholarly attention, especially in the run-up to the 2017 self-proclaimed referendum and its aftermath. The so-called procés – literally meaning ‘process’ – towards independence prompted extensive studies on, amongst others, the strategy of political elites (Dalle Mulle and Serrano 2019; della Porta and Portos 2021; Ruiz Casado 2023), the sentiment of national identity (Serrano 2013; Clua I Fainé 2014; Hawkey 2024), as well as the role of linguistic and cultural tradition (Woolard 2016; Sanjaume-Calvet and Riera-Gil 2022; Vaczi 2023). Specifically, the 2017 referendum has been widely recognised as a pivotal moment (Arrighi 2019; Ubasart-González 2020). On the one hand, the political momentum for independence was lost due to Spanish authorities’ repression and the subsequent reaction of pro-independence partisan elites. Specifically, the fragmentation of the pro-independence coalition seemingly brought the historical procés to a halt when it lost its majority in the Catalan regional election in 2024. On the other hand, its execution consolidated Catalans’ feeling of belonging to a political community (Achniotis 2021) and made independence look like an attainable goal more than ever before. While partisan strategies may have reached an impasse, Catalans’ aspirations for independence are far from disappearing. Although the fundamental role of civil society actors leading to, as well as during, the 2017 referendum has been acknowledged (López and Sanjaume-Calvet 2020; Pascal 2022), much remains to be said about the evolution of their repertoires of action in the aftermath of such a pivotal moment. Fundamentally, separatist civil society actors must navigate both the enduring fragmentation and impasse of partisan actors and the ecosystem of democratic backsliding. Beyond the research that discusses the adaptation strategies to the repression and surveillance around the 2017 referendum (such as Gunzelmann 2024), the medium and long-term impact of the shrinking operational spaces for civil society actors remains unclear. Equally unclear is the way in which civil society actors adapted their strategies to achieve independence in this transformed political environment. To fill this gap, this paper asks: how do separatist civil society actors adapt their repertoires of action to face critical junctures in their struggle? It answers this question by focusing on the performance of three actors with distinct historical trajectories, operating with different strategies at a variety of scales – namely: Ómnium Cultural, Assemblea Nacional Catalana, and the Comités de la Defensa de la Repùblica. By discussing the way in which the waning of the procés affected their practices of separatist claims-making, this paper will show how sovereign aspiring entities rearticulate their political repertoires at the intersection of historical contingencies and the positionality of other actors in the political space. Moreover, it nuances the literature on sovereignty by bringing the performative dimension of rights-claims to the core of the discussion to stress both actors’ capacity to adapt strategies and the way in which they bring forth novel understandings of what independence can mean.